Mila Haugová: The forest of things as a literary autobiography

 – Slovakia

Mila Haugová (* 1942) was born in Budapest and moved with her parents several times as a child – she lived in Berehove near Uzhhorod, in Vrábly, Nitra and Topoľčianky. They finally settled in Zajačá Dolina near Levice. Her father was imprisoned for political reasons between 1951 and 1953. She graduated from the Faculty of Agronomy of the University of Agriculture in Nitra. She worked in various jobs as an agronomist, high school teacher, elementary school teacher and editor of the magazine Romboid.

She is one of the most inspiring and most translated Slovakian poetesses. Her poems have been published in English, German, French, Russian and Spanish. Over the years of her living with literature, she has published numerous poetry collections and several autobiographical prose works. Among the most significant ones are Praláska (Ancient Love), Čisté dni (Clean Days), Dáma s jednorožcom (Lady with a Unicorn), Miznutie anjelov (Disappearing of Angels), Zrkadlo dovnútra (Mirror to the Inside), Písať ako dýchat (To Write as to Breathe) or Tvrdé drevo detstva (Hard Wood of Childhood). Recently, she has published the collections Srna pozerajúca na Polárku (A Doe Looking at the North Star), Dokonalé zvire(nie), Isola sacra and most recently Sylwa rerum (autobiographical prose).

She has received many awards for her poetic work. In 2020, she was awarded the European Prize for Literature Vilenica (Slovenia), subsequently the Prize of the Club of Independent Writers, the Literary Fund Prize, the Prize of the President of the Slovakian Republic Zuzana Čaputová Pribinov kříž of II. degree, the Tatra Banka Prize and last autumn the Zlatá vlna award for poetry. She has been representing Slovakian literature at international festivals in Berlin, London, Prague, Budapest, Paris, Wien and Brno.